


Neither Rhyme Nor Reason

by unveiled



Category: Star Trek (2009), Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Cthia, Grief/Mourning, Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations, Kink Meme, M/M, Pon Farr, Species Swap, Trauma, spock's world, the universe is in us
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-13
Updated: 2012-03-14
Packaged: 2017-11-01 22:18:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/361893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unveiled/pseuds/unveiled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles liked to tell people that the first time they met, Serik punched a kitten. (Or, the one where Erik is an angry Vulcan, Charles is still a telepath, and grief still shapes their lives.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a [kinkmeme prompt](http://xmen-firstkink.livejournal.com/7736.html?thread=14260024#t14260024) asking for "Vulcan!Erik undergoing his first Pon Farr with his Telepathic Human Mate!Charles". I tweaked it a little for my own nefarious purposes.
> 
> Note on _Trek_ canon: I'm mostly drawing on ST:XI and all other TV/movie canon except _ST: Enterprise_ , but also a good chunk of the novels _Spock's World_ and (to a lesser extent) _Sarek_. I tried to restrict myself to ST:XI/TOS-era technology and terminology, but no doubt a few anachronisms did slip through.

Charles liked to tell people that the first time they met, Serik punched a kitten.

That said kitten was in fact a Caitian ensign who over-estimated his capacity for intoxicants remained — much to Serik's very logical objection — a mere footnote in Charles's favourite anecdote. But of course Charles almost always got his way. He was equal parts infuriating arrogance and breath-taking intelligence, rolled up neatly into one charming telepath.

Serik didn't think he would like Charles, the first time they met at the Academy. He'd been one of the first batch of Vulcan cadets after the destruction of their homeworld, bristling with the keen pain of the empty places in their heads. Vulcans were taught to eschew anger, but Serik allowed rage — and a Vulcan's rage was as deep and true as the oceans of Earth — to drive him into submitting an application to Starfleet and packing his bags for San Francisco. He hadn't needed to say goodbye. He had no family left, being the sole survivor of a clan that had its origins in the forges of Gol.

He attended the preparatory briefing at the newly-rebuilt ShiKahr. The Human Starfleet officer who conducted the briefing indicated, with tactful delicacy, that Vulcans sometimes had difficulty integrating with non-Vulcan cadets. Serik had fully expected himself to be one of them.

He hadn't counted on the roommate assigned to his quarters: a dark-haired, blue-eyed Human who, suitcase in hand, casually stepped over the Caitian ensign now moaning on the floor in front of Serik's door.

"I'm Charles Xavier," Charles had said. "You must be Serik, how lovely to meet you. And may I say, you have a _spectacular_ arse."

Serik forced himself not to blink. He reminded himself that Xavier was his roommate, thus conflict was best averted until and unless necessary. "Sexual harassment is grounds for expulsion, cadet," he said frostily.

"I'm part-Betazoid." Charles grinned, his bright blue eyes doing... things... that slightly elevated Serik's heart rate. Ridiculous. "We have a cultural imperative towards full disclosure. By the way, I'm a telepath, but I will try to be polite about reading your thoughts."

"Curious," Serik said. "Part-Betazoid children have never been known to fully inherit their Betazoid parent's telepathy."

Charles's smile didn't waver. "Funny how these things work out. Shall we escort the good ensign to the infirmary?"

He was determined from the outset to lay down boundaries. Rules of inter-personal engagement. But Charles tore through them blithely, leaving Serik to pick up the tattered remains of his dignity and trudge after where Charles led. Before Serik knew it, his circle of acquaintances expanded to include Raven Dax, Charles's oldest, closest friend and adopted sister; a Megazoid Science cadet named Han Ree, who was a genius irrationally self-conscious about his appearance; and a trio of noisy, argumentative Humans: Angel Salvadore, Alex Summers, and Sean Cassidy. Summers was apparently embroiled in — according to Charles's highly subjective description — a tragic, chaste ("did I mention tragic?"), star-crossed affair with a Deltan by name of Arman.

And then there was Emma Froi, the sole full-blooded Betazoid in their year. Her relationship with Charles seemed to be limited to judging Charles and finding him wanting, and laughing at Serik while in telepathic communion with Charles. Serik told himself that dislike was a perfectly rational response to a thoroughly disagreeable person. Truly, he could see no logical reason why Charles gave every appearance of being enamoured with her.

"Charles is a masochist," Dax said cheerfully to Serik. "I could tell you stories, but I promised I wouldn't spill unless it's to someone he's fucking. Though hey, I can argue he's getting off on coming back to you to be metaphorically spanked."

Occasionally, Serik reflected, it was a challenge to remember that Raven Dax was a Trill and her symbiont was well over a century old. A propensity for speaking like a Human adolescent did not suit her in the least.

Serik said, "It would be in your best interest to cease from pursuing this line of speculation."

Dax rolled her eyes. "Fine, I'll drop it for now. Oh, did the others tell you? I'm switching to Command track. My supervisor was all, blah blah you won't be a pilot forever, have you thought about captaining your own ship blah. I wish Charles would do the same. He's wasted in Science."

"He disagrees very vehemently," Serik — who was in Engineering — said drily.

"We'll see," Raven said, ominous. "Could you tell Charles I want my lace top back? I have a date with a hot Efrosian tonight, and he's got to have seduced that guy in Xenobiology by now."

*****

Salvadore lost one of her mothers in the battle against the _Narada_. She rarely spoke about the death, and when she did it was after the consumption of numerous intoxicating beverages, as the bars they went to started to empty out.

"You know what was the worst thing about it? That everything went back to normal so goddamn fast," she once said, toasting the dead with a half-drained pint of ale. "Sometimes I'd catch myself thinking, I gotta tell Mama about this shit — and then I remember she's dead."

Serik was a Vulcan. Forgetting was not an option, no matter how brief the moment of absent-mindedness, and his loss was a presence that crowded around every minute of every day. It drove him to wakefulness in the middle of the night, whereupon he would hunch over a tablet in his bed, drawing schematics of weapons he saved and set aside. His people lost Vulcan because the Romulans on _Narada_ had more destructive weapons at their disposal and none of the Vulcans' scruples. What if Surak was wrong about peace and pacifism? After all, his people's ability to retain their way of life with relatively little change after the founding of the Federation was due to the fact that they had been able to negotiate from a position of strength. Principles had little practical value without the power to enforce them.

Sometimes, on these nights, Charles shook himself awake and made tea for both of them: spice tea for Serik, chamomile for him. He chose the mug with bright yellow ducklings for Serik each time and handed it over without a word, though always with a smile. And, because Charles wouldn't be Charles if he wasn't being presumptuous, he would climb into Serik's narrow bed and made himself comfortable next to Serik, almost close enough to be touching. The faint buzz of his drowsy mind was a solace Serik found himself unwilling to refuse.

Charles was a weakness he could ill afford, but the man drew him in anyway, tethering Serik to this life the way his planet once did — the way his people's beliefs and rituals grounded him within something larger than history or lineage. A way of _being_ in the universe. Cthia.

His cognisance of his weakness made him work harder to prove himself, perhaps more recklessly than he should. Serik wondered if Charles knew, and if so, why he kept silent instead of confronting Serik as was his wont. But neither moved to uproot what was growing between them, in the heady sweetness of summers spent exploring Earth, and the companionable sprawl of evenings revising together. Time rolled on in the Academy: one year, then two, then three.

 _If we were assigned to the same ship_ — Serik cut off the thought. Wishes and hopes were for the irrational. Perhaps it would be for the best if they were separated upon graduation.

*****

And that would be that, if it hadn't been for Quidditch.

Starfleet instructors rode the cadets hard in basic training for a reason: a single lapse, or a careless prep, could result in serious injury or death. But even Commander James Howlett — nicknamed Wolverine by a succession of bruised and shell-shocked cadets — couldn't root out the combination of egotism and youthful self-confidence that made _excellent_ breeding ground for acts of impetuous competitiveness among the Academy's best and brightest. In theory, Starfleet's field training exercise would inculcate cadets with the value of teamwork and teach them to handle any terrain under any condition. In practice, it was an opportunity for one team of cadets to get a leg up on the others and receive the accolades of their peers, if they came out on top in the last test: In-Terrain Strategy and Operations Exercise, also known as The Game.

Unlike the Kobayashi Maru, The Game always had a clear winner.

That year, the objective of The Game was to capture a mobile, flight-capable probe and return with it to Base Camp. Cassidy had scratched his head during the exercise briefing and blurted out, "Isn't that, like, Quidditch?" — and the name stuck, with Human cadets dubbing the probe "the Evil Snitch" to the bemusement of their classmates. Nevertheless, none of the laughter could disguise the seriousness with which every cadet took The Game, all determined to win.

In hindsight, perhaps Serik should have considered the possibility that long exposure to more irrational species would irrevocably influence him, and took steps to correct it. Certainly he should've done so before embarking on the field training exercise, or at the very least, the night _before_ he jumped into an ocean to chase after the Snitch.

Cold water closed around him like a grave. Serik pushed away the beginnings of panic, holding on as tightly as he could to the slick, metallic surface of the Snitch. Tendrils of green seeped up from his fingers — blood, his flesh caught in the sharp edges of the probe. He would not fail in this, he thought to himself. He refused to.

Arms grabbed him from behind.

 _Serik, you have to let go_ , said Charles's voice in his head. _You have to let go or you'll drown_.

 _I will not_ , Serik said. _I cannot fail._

_Please, Serik. Please._

Warmth burst through him — Charles, his bright presence flooding into Serik's psyche, knitting together the ragged edges left behind by the loss of kin and home. Charles in his head was like the truth spoken after evidence. An afterthought to what Serik already knew but refused to see: that Charles belonged here, in him.

Serik let go.

*****

They didn't speak about it, still. What was there to say, when anything short of _yes_ would be a lie?

*****

Charles knew he was absolutely shite at relationships, despite his gregariousness and undeniable love for people. Making friends was easy, finding lovers even more so, but _keeping_ them was another matter. His friendship with Raven almost didn't survive her joining with the Dax symbiont — she was no longer the girl who held his hand as they walked from school, fundamentally altered in ways he could only share with another telepath. People were complicated and messy, and even love couldn't overcome all the things that drove people apart.

In another life, he might have pursued Serik with little thought of consequences. It wouldn't take much effort. Serik was attracted to him, if ever "attraction" was an adequate term to describe the possessiveness and the certainty of _rightness_ that Serik felt for him. It wouldn't be just a fling to to Serik, and Charles had learned enough discretion from his Human mother to know when to tread gently. Serik wanted children to re-populate Vulcan and his clan — wanted it so badly, he would leave Charles for it. And Charles would let him go, would eventually heal from it, but it would tear Serik apart.

This was stupid, Charles thought to himself savagely. He's getting ahead of himself. They hadn't even acknowledged what lay between them, let alone kissed.

It didn't mean he couldn't fantasise, though. Serik felt like the kind of man who'd fuck like a piston, Charles decided. He would make Charles sore for days and be discomfited by it, and after the first time Charles succeeded in goading him into a brutal fucking, he would be apologetic. Kind. But Charles would kneel at his feet and beg for more, still slick from Serik. Would Serik enjoy being fucked? Charles closed his eyes and flicked through his memories for what he knew of Vulcan physiology. Mmm, perhaps not. But Serik might like having his hole licked, and Charles had always loved eating out lovers of all sexes and genders.

Vulcan fingers were more sensitive than Betazoids and Humans. Perhaps...? Charles shivered at the thought of Serik's beautiful hands inside him, while Serik kissed away the tears from his eyes. Serik would be careful, so careful, but merciless in _making_ Charles take it, every digit and ridge and knuckle.

Charles glanced at his clock. Serik wouldn't be back at their room for at least another two hours. Biting his lower lip, he reached down and undid his trousers.


	2. Chapter 2

The rest of their final year in Starfleet Academy was agony. Serik took to the gym and sparring practice with unseemly enthusiasm — they worked better than meditation to regain his centre, though it dissolved again under prolonged contact with Charles. He caught Charles looking at him with an expression of guilt more than once, but he detected no change in the way Charles treated him. It made him want to tell Charles that Serik was the one at fault, for his inability to master himself.

Inexplicably, he was reminded of the week they spent camping in Western Australia, at the foot of Burringurrah. Charles was circumspect when Serik first broached the idea, partly out of his habitual dislike of the outdoors but also — as Serik realised later — because he feared that the red sandplains would remind Serik of his lost world. It did. Serik would be lying if he claimed not to have experienced a profound sense of dislocation upon comparing the gidgee wattles and goannas to his memories of traversing Vulcan's Forge during his kahs-wan ordeal, or that he was not stricken by a longing to see T'Khut in the night sky.

But it had also been the first time Earth became something other than alien to him, as if Vulcan had left echoes of itself across the universe for its inhabitants to discover in a time of need. It had been a pleasure, as well, to watch Charles brushing red soil from his hair as he read in the shade of their tent. Charles's fair skin burned quickly under the sun, and later there was another first, too: touching Charles with his hands, smoothing lotion over the dips and curves of Charles's back to soothe the skin.

He couldn't stop thinking about it now.

None of their friends seemed to notice the new tension between them, which pointed to either their appalling observational skills or — and this, mortifyingly, seemed more likely — they did not consider it to be out of the ordinary for Serik and Charles. Their conversations began to turn towards the future: which ships they wanted to serve on, the plans they sketched out for their lives, what they would do before graduation. 

Apparently, though Serik did not know it when he agreed to an "excursion", that included a flagrant violation of a fellow cadet's right to privacy. He knew himself to be utterly distracted when he did not notice that they, sans one Alex Summers, were lingering very deliberately in an all-night cafe in front of Arman's lodgings on Russian Hill — until Cassidy ordered a second glass of iced coffee and _no one_ stopped him.

"Were you not barred from drinking caffeinated beverages after 2000 hours?" Serik said.

"Yeah," Cassidy said. "But I'm gonna need it to stay awake long enough for them to finish fucking."

" _Explain_."

The bare bones of the story, which Serik pieced together from their overlapping and over-excited explainations, were that Summers and Arman chose to consummate their relationship. And they chose to do so for only one night, before they were to graduate and enter into service.

"Deltans have to take a vow of celibacy in Starfleet 'cause having sex with us is like hebephilia or something. Yep, even the ones from species who were building engines when the Deltans were still banging rocks together," Salvadore said, sarcastic. "If that ain't discrimination, I don't know what is. What, Starfleet can't tell the rest of us to keep our pants on?"

"Speaking as someone who's non-baseline-humanoid, I'd settle for regulation boots that fit," Han Ree said wistfully, looking down at his large, unshod feet. "It was embarrassing having to write to an Admiral, to get a dispensation from wearing shoes."

"Dude, things aren't gonna change until other Federation members step up and tell Starfleet how it should be doing things right. _Other_ than the Andorians and Tellarites," Cassidy pointed out. "I mean, more than half of Starfleet personnel are Human — we're its single biggest contributor."

Serik felt a headache building up behind his eyes. Next to him, Charles shot him a sympathetic look. "Point well taken, but what are _we_ doing here?"

Dax, utterly and sincerely serious, said, "We're Alex's wingmen. In case having sex with Arman makes him go insane."

"The pheromones, you know," Ree added, fidgeting under Serik's stare.

Charles coughed. "I'm keeping tabs on them from afar. With my telepathy. Surface scanning only, mind you."

"Creepy, but justified," said Dax, to the others' approving nods.

Serik's mouth worked, soundlessly.

"It's not that we _want_ to breach their privacy," Charles said hurriedly. "But we're very worried for Alex and Arman."

"Nobody wants Arman to turn Alex's brain into porridge," Cassidy said.

Ree _hmph_ ed. "Not that he was ever the brightest intellectual light in the galaxy."

"And a fucking irresponsible one, at that," Salvadore said. She and Cassidy exchanged fistbumps.

Dax frowned, looking hurt. "They're only trying to be true to themselves," she said quietly. "There's nothing wrong with not wanting to hide who you are and what you feel — and they know the risks, they went into this with their eyes open."

"That's what you're telling Scott if the only living relative he has ends up in a psych ward?" Salvadore said, flicking off a bead of condensation from her glass. "Alex's baby brother ain't even out of high school. You know I don't think Deltans should be hiding who they are. It doesn't mean I think _we_ should be lining up around the block for a piece of 'em."

Charles shushed them, cutting short the argument. "Arman and Alex are done — they had a lovely time, by the way — and Alex is unharmed. Let's go before Arman sees us. I think he's walking Alex to the door."

Cassidy elected to stay as Summers's emergency psychological support, but the others scattered into the warm night. Serik noticed that while Dax asked after Salvadore's and Ree's plans for the evening, she didn't bother with him, clearly assuming that he and Charles would have already arranged something together. She wasn't entirely wrong, Serik thought, as they meandered towards Fisherman's Wharf. Charles was conscientious about respecting Serik to make his own choices, but ever since the day they met Charles walked with the assumption that he would see Serik keeping pace next to him, and Serik had always been loath to disappoint him.

They ended up at Pier 39 — never Serik's favourite place in San Francisco, though it was made more bearable with the shop shutters coming down and tourists leaving in a chattering stream. Charles was a silent, cool point by Serik's side, drawing the thrumming air of life around him into himself, until Serik couldn't breathe with wanting. They stood together at the edge of the pier looking out into the bay, gleaming with the lights of the city.

"Charles," Serik said, and stopped. He caught the sleeve of Charles's jacket between his fingers, the fabric warm from Charles's body.

He didn't know what to say. He wanted to tell Charles: _I want my mother to meet you. I want to watch as you see Vulcan's red sky for the first time, and I want to pledge my life to you with it as witness. I want you. I want to have something to give you._

"Serik," Charles said, turning to him, "have you ever thought about how, for all the differences between us, you and I and this pier and every planet and every star that ever was— that we can all trace the atoms that make up our bodies to the birth of the universe? We come from the same place, you and I, regardless of the distance that separated our ancestors."

Serik thought about the red soil of Burringurrah and Charles's face at dawn, listening to birdcalls. His throat constricted.

"Not everything is lost, my friend." Charles's eyes were blue and anguished, pinning him into stillness. "You. All the things Vulcans did right and all the things they did wrong, the food they ate, the love they died for, the beliefs they repudiated. Their imperfections. The memories that were never written down. The arguments that were never resolved. They all live on in you.

"And they live on in me, too. In the language taught to me by a Vulcan teacher. In the friends I had, and still have. In the laws your people made as part of the Federation. In the way they changed the universe, simply by _being_. In the common heritage of the atoms of my body and your body and every living being in this universe. Vulcan was our loss, too."

Charles tugged his sleeve free, not to move away but so he could draw the tips of his fingers down the web of skin between Serik's thumb and forefinger, tracing gentle circles on Serik's skin.

"There's so much more to you — to us — than what you know. You're worthy of what you carry in you, as you are now. And you're not alone. You don't have to take what we would give to you. No gratitude is needed. Just— know that we are here."

Serik stared down at Charles's hand, following the lines of its blunt-fingered strength. How strange and wondrous, that Charles's hands looked like they could cradle the world in them. Gently, reverently, he touched the tips of his fingers to Charles's, in the manner of bondmates. 

"What I want is impossible," he said, the last syllables ragged on his tongue.

Charles turned his face away, as if disappointed, but he clung to Serik's hand. This time, Serik thought, letting go was never an option he would allow himself to consider. They let their fingers to touch all the way to their room at the Academy, through the streets and on the cablecar and down the corridors of the dormitory, past their sleeping classmates — and parted, decorously, at their door.

*****

They were assigned to the _Enterprise_.

Dax forbore from laughing in Serik's face, but she couldn't resist saying, "You two have so much more drama and excitement than any spectacle the Dax symbiont remembers witnessing, and believe me, I'd know: the previous host was a gymnastic competitor at the _Olympics_."

"Thank you for your utterly unnecessary contribution," Serik said.

"Cheer up," she said. "At least Charles is in Science, not Security. He's much less likely to get into trouble there."

*****

"I am so sorry," Raven said. She tried to find a part of Charles's body she could hug without pressing on the mottled bruises spread across his skin, then sighed and gave him a kiss on the forehead instead.

He smiled up at her. "It's all right," he said. "There's no such thing as a jinx."

"Please stop saying stuff like that," Sean moaned.

Raven glared at him. "Hey, Comms guy, shouldn't you be attempting to communicate with our jailors?"

"I doubt they're interested in negotiations, Raven," Charles said. "I can't quite bring myself to blame them — we did stumble into what's essentially a civil war."

Gloomily, they watched the Capellans who were guarding their cell. The Capellans stared back without interest, gripping their Klingon-made disruptors with a little too much fervour for comfort.

"You know, I want to think that in another universe, Starfleet Intelligence actually tells us about shit like this," Sean said. He didn't sound at all convinced.

"Pfft," Raven said. "In another universe, Starfleet probably holds bomb-making classes for the other faction. We need the topaline."

"This conversation is not conducive for my optimism," Charles said, with great dignity.

Raven tweaked his nose. "But is it conducive for your telepathy?"

"Mmm. Let me try again." Charles took a deep, slow breath, closing his eyes. Raven stroked his hair soothingly, and just as welcome was the bright press of her mind against his, anchoring him. He let his telepathy ripple outwards, trawling for everything he could.

His eyes flew open.

"Oh fuck, are they gonna kill us?" Sean demanded.

"No, but—"

A loud whine pierced the air, followed immediately by the spectacular collapse of one of the walls of their cell into rubble and dust. Coughing, Raven staggered to her feet, hauling Charles with her. Sean, ever courageous despite his best interests, placed himself firmly in front of Charles. He and Raven squinted into the bright sunlight, ready for a fight.

Charles could've told them that they'd be better off bracing themselves against hugs. Angel was first into the breach, pointing her phaser rifle at the Capellans even as more Security officers swarmed through the entrance proper, shouting for the Capellans to surrender. If it was eased by a suggestion planted in the Capellans' minds, well — Charles would apologise for the ethical transgression later.

Next to him, Raven gave a soft gasp.

He would recognise that mental signature anywhere, even before the grasp of a warm hand on his arm told him that Angel hadn't been the only person known to him in the rescue party. Charles looked up into gray eyes — unusual for a Vulcan — and cursed every god he knew for making Serik see him like this, hurting and mortal.

Charles coughed and tried, "Did— did Captain Kirk lose too many Security officers again, that he had to send down engineers?"

"Quiet," Serik said. Demanded, really. But it was hard to take offense when Serik pulled Charles into his arms, those graceful hands cupping the back of Charles's head, keeping him safe.


	3. Chapter 3

Charles said, upon being released from Sickbay, "We need to talk."

Eight days, three hours and fifty-four minutes later, Serik's success in avoiding the "talk" remained unbroken and unchallenged. There were reasonable justifications for the delay: the captain had been thorough in his unfavourable assessment of the need for Serik's presence in the rescue party that retrieved the _Enterprise_ 's imprisoned crew. As a result, though his infraction was not officially recorded, he was assigned double shifts doing menial work. 

It would have left enough of a dent in his dignity without Captain Kirk's unwarranted, wildly speculative commentary on the nature of his relationship with Charles, Dax, and Cassidy. Dax would laugh herself sick, had she heard. As it was, Serik was reluctant to prove the captain right in any way whatsoever.

Charles himself faced high demands on his time. He often supplemented his current duties with labwork and research for the Medical division, drawing on his considerable expertise as a xeno-genetician. He seemed to be thriving under the challenge; Charles spent hours cloistered in intense discussions with Commander Spock, whom Charles clearly held in high regard. Commander Spock, for his part, disgraced himself with blatant displays of favouritism towards Charles — though, Serik conceded, Charles's intelligence and singular warmth were appallingly appealing.

"Serik?"

He blinked and focused on Salvadore, sitting across the table from him. She held up her hands in a placating gesture, nodding at his right hand. He blinked again and looked down, immediately overcome by chagrin.

"You just broke your fork into two. Also, you're scaring half the mess hall with those crazy eyes," she said. "Anything you wanna tell us?"

"No," he said curtly.

Dax tilted her head, skeptical. "Yeah, that was _so_ convincing. Are you convinced, Sean?"

"Nope," Cassidy said. "And I've seen his poker face when he pushed me off that shuttle in sky-diving. He can do lots better than this."

Regrettably, Serik often shared a lunch table with his Academy compatriots, who as a group was incapable of releasing from their clutches anything that caught their interest until it was dissected, pulverised, and reformed into — in their minds — a more pleasing shape. If Charles was around, he would have helped Serik deflect their attention, but he was again consulting Commander Spock over some minor detail or another.

"Again with the crazy eyes there, Serik," Salvadore chipped in. "Is anyone else concerned?"

As one, they raised their hands. Even Ree, who still fumbled nervously around Serik; and Summers, who was still preoccupied with brooding over Arman, like the misbegotten hero of a tragic Human novel.

"Bet you a month's dessert rations that it's about Charles," Dax said, smirking.

"It's always about Charles," Summers muttered.

"Hey, now, that's unfair," Salvadore said. The protest was feeble and, in Serik's eyes, conspicuously did not reflect her true feelings on the subject.

"Man, seriously," Cassidy said. "I'm sorry for breaking at least one major Vulcan taboo, but just _fuck_ him. Please."

It was as if something in him, drawn taut, snapped apart. Serik slapped down the pieces of his fork onto the table, making everyone jump in their seats. Dax's eyes widened, then turned sharp with a look both knowing and inquisitive.

"Excuse me, I must attend to my duties," Serik said as evenly as he could, getting to his feet. The sound of his chair scraping against the deck grated in his ears, but he didn't think he could bear another second of the stifling pressure of the bodies and noise around him — least of all his friends and their unwelcome, unsolicited meddling. He strode out of the mess hall without another word.

*****

Serik slept badly, these days. Meditation did little but delay the nightly onset of the fitfulness that drove him to pace up and down his quarters, and when that proved to be dissatisfying he took to wandering the observation deck.

He was unused to being alone again, he realised. Summers had commented enviously on Serik not being assigned a roommate onboard the _Enterprise_ , but after four years of living with Charles he found it difficult to adjust to the silence. Charles radiated a palpable psychic presence even while asleep. T'Ruth, his sister, had been an Adept before she perished with Vulcan — she was much the same in that aspect.

She would have approved of Charles's telepathy and intellect. T'Ruth was in favour of greater integration with the Federation, and saw isolationist politics as both illogical and short-sighted. Her only misgivings on hybridity — Serik almost winced at the memory of her distaste for the term — were rooted firmly in biological reasoning and the high likelihood of sterile offspring, not on notions of cultural dilution. Serik sometimes wondered if she would change her favourable stance on mixed marriages in the face of threatened extinction. Unlikely, he thought. T'Ruth was not easily swayed.

Their parents were unlikely to be so sanguine. They had not betrothed him out of respect for the decision he made after his kahs-wan ritual, but Serik was conscious that it was not a reliable indicator of their willingness to accept that a half-Human, half-Betazoid male could be a suitable match for their son. Neither of his parents have had prolonged contact with non-Vulcans, and no one in his family had ever taken an offworlder as a bondmate.

He could not be certain, however. Not of anything, not even of his family's probable responses — he was merely speculating, based on limited data gathered over a period during which he was not always privy to his parents' private conversations, nor to his sister's interactions with her peers. And their katras were lost, vanished into the singularity with their physical bodies. He would never know now. 

Once upon a time, it would have been reason enough to turn away from Charles, lest his turmoil distracted him from his duty. Serik had changed, however, from the man who arrived at San Francisco with everything he owned in two carry bags. He had not accumulated many worldly goods in the years since, but attachments he never conceived of needing and questions he never thought of asking. New stars to guide his path in the universe. What would cthia demand of him now?

That was the heart of the matter: Charles wanted an answer, and Serik did not have one to give him.

*****

He should have known that Charles would force the issue. Ten days after Charles broached the necessity of a talk, almost to the minute, Serik entered his quarters to find Charles watching the news. Curled up on Serik's bunk, his boots neatly tucked under it.

"Betazed is officially a member of the Federation, as of two hours ago," Charles said, eyes fixed on the scrolling text. "The Council fast-tracked its application, as Mother thought. Emma won't be pleased — she used up a considerable amount of political favours to persuade Admiral Shaw to sponsor her application to Starfleet." 

"Froi has an inflated sense of her political acumen," Serik said, unkindly.

"Well, she was only one among many who didn't foresee that Betazed would rally the pacifistic members together and install itself in a leadership position. Not this quickly, at any rate. I suppose the pacifists must be more nervous than we thought, with Vulcan out of the picture while it rebuilds and Cardassia moving against Bajor."

He looked up at Serik. "I wish I'd been able to talk to you as I used to, these past few days. I miss our little debates."

"They were," Serik said, forcing the words out, "hardly 'little'."

Charles laughed and sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bunk. "No, I suppose not. But I still miss you. And I think we've dilly-dallied on this long enough."

Between one blink and the next, Serik somehow crossed the room to stand in front of Charles, close enough to smell Charles's shampoo and the sweat on his skin. He could hear the rapid beating of Charles's heart within its ribcage — he must be experiencing a mental disorder, Serik thought, to be hearing something that should be beyond even the ability of a Vulcan's sensitive ears.

"Get out," he snarled.

"No," Charles said, calmly.

Serik's fists curled. Heat clawed up from inside his body, making his hands tremble. "What do you _want_ , Charles?"

"I want to suck your cock." Charles's bright eyes bore through Serik, his red mouth imbuing every word with longing. "I want to get down on my knees and take your cock in my mouth, bury my face between your legs until all I can taste and smell is you. I'd make you fuck my mouth, and then I want to lick your hole. There're more than enough nerve endings there for you to find it pleasurable, I should think."

Serik swallowed, staggering back a step, two steps. His blood roared in his ears. He was seeing Charles's face anew, those angles and lines as prosaic to him as the shape of his own hands — as if Charles had peeled off a layer of himself, his body a strange new world for Serik to discover.

"I'd lick you until you start begging. Then I want to say to you that you can do whatever you want to me. Fuck me, love me, degrade me. Hurt me, if you like. I want you to let me touch you. I want to taste the folds of skin at your elbows. I want to feel you here, in my head. I'd let you come on me. In me.

"When we're done, I want to sleep next to you," Charles said, his voice beginning to shake. "I want to wake up and see your face in the morning. I want to make you tea and I want you to kiss me as you leave for your shift. And then I want to do everything all over again, for the rest of my life."

Helplessly, Serik reached out to touch a strand of Charles's hair, his fingertips barely brushing the psi points on Charles's temple. "You have put me in an untenable position."

"I know. I'm selfish and awful, I'm afraid." Charles tried a smile. His calm cracked right down in the middle, and Serik could not stand it, could not bear the sight of Charles's soft underbelly exposed.

"Charles—" Serik hesitated, trying to fit clumsy words into understanding. "I would dishonour you, and myself, were I to claim that I do not reciprocate your interest. The depth of my regard for you matches yours for me in intensity — indeed, it has been so for some time. Longer, perhaps, than either of us realised. In another universe, I would join our minds and lives for as long as we both exist, as soon as you can draw the breath to say yes." 

Charles made as if to speak, but Erik shook his head and held a hand to Charles's chest, stopping a bare finger's width above the fabric of his shirt. "I would petition for your katra to be placed in the Hall of Ancient Thought, even if others do not believe it to be possible. I know better. You have been in my mind, Charles, and I have touched your essence. The rest of the universe may wage war against the truth, to no avail — they will bend to it sooner or later.

"But we live in a universe where the possibilities for our future together are shaped by a profound loss and, correspondingly, a great responsibility on my part to my people. For us, I want what you want. For my world, I want its rebirth. I have tried — so very hard — to reconcile both things." Serik folded his hands behind his back, head bowed. "I cannot make a decision now."

"I understand," Charles said after a long silence, and it was true, for all that he sighed as he said it. "We're due for shore leave on New Vulcan in two days. I'll leave you to it until we return to the ship. And Serik—" his smile turned genuine "—please do whatever it is that brings you peace. I can't ask for more, whatever your decision."


	4. Chapter 4

The Haolvaya-temep settlement established around the spaceport on Vulcana Regar accommodated as many as three thousand offworlders at any one time, most of them Starfleet personnel and volunteers assisting in the construction of the new Vulcan homeworld. It should have had a dismal reputation as a place for shore leave, given strict regulations on the public sale and consumption of intoxicants; instead, with delightful perversity, its inhabitants enthusiastically took to creating their own fun.

Serik could not claim to possess enough information to form a learned opinion on Haolvaya-temep's allegedly louche subcultures. He was skeptical, however, of its inhabitants' claims as to its viability as a gateway between Vulcan and the rest of the Federation. Naturally, Charles liked Haolvaya-temep, as did Dax. Serik's Academy compatriots escaped into the orderly streets as soon as they disembarked, like a gaggle of schoolchildren on their first unsupervised outing. Adult dignity gave way under child-like glee of new discoveries. 

The city was new to him, too. Serik's family had settled in the original Vulcana Regar for generations, having migrated northeast from Gol. He was thus entitled to domicile in the rebuilt city, in a building constructed by Vulcan authorities, but he had never actually lived there for any significant length of time. Serik had requested and received a small dwelling at the edge of the city, built in the typical Vulcan style and hewn from the ochre rock of the surrounding crags.

He spent his first night in the empty house alone, listening to the nocturnal calls of unfamiliar wildlife. He should, he thought, learn their species designations.

*****

On the second day, Serik woke up before dawn for an early morning hike, letting the physical exertion eat through his restlessness. He put together the furniture he had ordered for the house, then spent far too many hours ignoring the temptation to call Charles.

There was a thread of awareness between them now, sweet and aching, an unspoken promise of welcome to seeking hands. Serik knew that Charles was alive and happy, across the city from where he was. Calling him was likely redundant, Serik thought.

His comm chimed with a message late in the evening, nevertheless: Charles, always serendipitous, asking after his health. Affection suffused his voice in the brief message, a sensation almost as physical as a fire in a hearth.

On the third day, Serik woke up burning.

*****

Nothing could have prepared him for this. He knew what to expect, of course, in purely biological terms — he remembered the data, the charts, the matter-of-fact words of his teachers and parents. Nothing he had ever learned came close to the raw reality of the betrayal of his body, his intellect and reason subsumed under the fierce, thrumming craving.

 _Charles_ , his mind sang, despairing.

How did he not realise that he had begun the early stages of pon farr? The pain was fitting punishment for his oversight, that he would have to suffer alone and repudiate comfort. Serik gasped, his back arching off the bed as his muscles seized, his cock hard and leaking. Nothing gave relief, nothing but the touch of a bondmate he did not have. His sheets were soaked in sweat, semen, and humiliated tears. Serik rolled onto his front, the heels of his hands digging into the mattress, trying to push himself into a meditation pose.

He was going to die, Serik told himself. He was going to die from plak tow if he didn't end this. Charles would never know why, with custom dictating that the official cause of his death be inscribed as "fever". Another spasm wracked his body, the fire in his blood scorching him from the inside. He closed his eyes.

Time passed without notice. He could have lain there for hours, even days, before a cool touch on his brow awakened him.

"It's all right, Serik," said Charles's voice. _Impossible_ , Serik thought, but he would know the shape of Charles's hand on his anywhere, guiding him towards truths he never thought to find. 

He opened his eyes. Charles was naked next to him, the pale line of his body like water to a parched throat. Charles's mouth on Serik's was a balm and a firestarter all at once, making the tension in his body coil even tighter, but there was a purpose for his desires now. A focal point. A lodestone.

"I cannot," Serik groaned, the words garbling in his mouth.

"Yes," Charles said, fitting their bodies together in a rapturous completion, shaking him to the bone. "This is me saying _yes_. Serik, please."

Serik trembled. His hands, when he placed them on Charles's freckled shoulders, were clumsy and awkward — but Charles kissed him tenderly, as one would a precious thing.

"Yes," he said, and fell into the heart of a star.

*****

He would have wept for Serik, if he could.

Raven's extremely truncated and incomplete explanation of pon farr left much to be desired, least of all of how little it prepared him for the sight of Serik stripped bare, body and mind. There was no time to dwell on it, though, not with Serik as far gone as he was. And the fire was beginning to course through his veins too, setting him alight with desire.

Charles looked into Serik's horrified eyes and knew, down to the very core of his being, this one thing: if they were to come out of Serik's pon farr intact, he would have to be the initiator. The one who said yes first, the one who took Serik in hand and told him everything would be fine, _just follow my lead_.

Serik was feverishly hot to touch, fingers leaving bruises where they clutched too hard at Charles. He imagined Serik's body as heated iron on his skin, re-shaping him forever into half of a larger whole. Serik's mind was as insistent as his body, thoughts and feelings streaming into Charles in a never-ending torrent.

If he hadn't known it before, he would know it now: Vulcan's greatest secret was the passion under its skin, banked and dammed but never gone.

Charles opened his body and leaned up, drawing Serik into him. Serik hissed, his face contorting in pleasure as he fucked into Charles. _God_. He felt split open, the pain filthy and perfect. The sheets under him scraped against Charles's back as Serik fucked him with wild abandon, giving up any pretense of control.

Serik bit his lip when he came, swallowing back a shout. Charles struggled under him, desperate for friction, just beginning to peak. "Don't stop," he begged, though he was immediately repentant when Serik gave a frustrated whine, rolling his hips in unhappy twitches.

He licked the blood off Serik's mouth, tasting copper, and whispered, "Watch this."

Charles pushed Serik off and propped himself against the pillows, pulling his knees up and spreading his legs wider, canting his hips upward. Serik sat back, watching avidly as Charles licked his hand sloppily and reached down, wrapping them around his cock and stroking roughly.

 _Mine_ , said Serik's thoughts. _Mine to have_.

"Yes, always, yours," Charles breathed. "Wet your fingers and put them in me."

"How— how many?" Serik asked unsteadily, but he was already pouring lube onto his fingers, warming the slick liquid. He looked ravished, hair askew, a bite beginning to bruise on his collarbones.

Charles giggled, feeling drunk and giddy with reflected desires. "Let's start with one— ahh. Yes, that's it. Now, another."

Serik was now kneeling between his legs, resting his head against one of Charles's knees. His mouth parted as he watched his fingers sliding in and out of Charles, messy with lube and semen, his body already stirring hungrily. Charles could taste his impatience, and knew that he could feel the steady beat of Charles's love.

"Curl your fingers up, slightly," Charles said around a whimper, fucking himself back onto Serik's fingers. "Feel that? Oh, god— that's how you're going to make me come— you don't always have to, and this isn't the only— harder, _now_."

Charles was still enjoying the aftershocks of his orgasm when Serik snarled and grabbed his hips, pounding his cock into Charles in-and-out in a punishing rhythm, selfishly chasing after his own pleasure. Charles moaned. He _had_ given quite a show, he thought, almost coherently.

And there would be time, later, to demand what he was entitled to.

*****

"You're forgetting something," Charles said on their second night together, lying in the cradle of Serik's arms. Temporarily sated, for now they simply basked in each other's presence, enjoying the contact of skin-to-skin and mind-to-mind.

"What is it?" Serik said, softly.

Charles took Serik's hand in his and placed it against the side of his face, spreading the fingers apart. "I bound us together when I first touched you in pon farr, but it's a weak bond — easily broken," he said. "I want this to be permanent, if— if you'll have me."

Serik brushed his lips against Charles's forehead and confessed, in a murmur, "I am afraid. I have made my decision and believe it to be right, but what if I am mistaken? What if it is indeed impossible to have both you and a future for Vulcan? I may be swayed too heavily in favour of one to the detriment of the other, and I cannot bear either your unhappiness or the neglect of my duty."

"Of course you're going to make mistakes, Serik. _I_ have, and I will again. None of us are perfect, even Vulcans who try very hard." Charles nuzzled the palm of Serik's hand, pressing kisses on the lines of the calloused skin. He thought about the weapons schematics Serik hadn't known he knew about, and grieved for Serik. "We all have to find a balance between rage and serenity, between reflection and action, that allows us to live in this world as truthfully as we can. And that point where one counter-balances the other cannot be realised without having failed at least once, and having learned from mistakes."

Serik looked down at Charles, his face grave and troubled. "How do you know all this?"

"I have secrets, too," Charles whispered, tucking his head under Serik's chin. "Terrible ones, some of them not even Raven knows."

"Will you tell me?"

Charles grinned and pulled at Serik's fingers. "There's only one way to know."

Serik huffed something that might have been a laugh, ruffling Charles's hair. "This is blackmail."

At that, Charles turned serious again, all traces of a smile banished from his mouth as he said, "I would tell you, you know. Before you bond with me. I would rather lose you now than make you think I've betrayed you."

"I know," Serik said. "And I do not believe there is a secret so terrible that it would lower my estimation of you."

Charles turned the words over in his mind, then said, "I'd ask if you were ready for this, but I don't know if either of us are." 

He raised his head to meet Serik's eyes, feeling his heart expand with fragile hope. As one, they raised their hands. Fingertips pressed against psi points, the touch merely a faint reflection of what was to come: a true joining of minds, where pure knowing could begin. Charles exhaled, synchronising his breathing with Serik's.

"Let's find out."

*****

**Epilogue**

Serik followed the psychic trail of his bondmate to the garden of their home, where he found Charles looking wistfully at one of the native succulents he planted, stroking its sharp, black thorns with his fingers. He deliberately projected a silent sigh at Charles — who was in considerable danger of either passing out from a heatstroke in the heavy brocade of his dress uniform, or annoying one of the tiny, viciously territorial birds that lived in symbiosis with the plant.

"I don't know why everyone complains about the dress uniform," Charles said, as usual ignoring the niceties of convention and the possibility that someone might like to be able to verbally express their thoughts before hearing a reply. "Yes, it is rather showy, but that is the entire point. The climate control fabric makes it more bearable, too."

"I suspect, Charles, that much of the crew will inflict violence on your person upon hearing that pronouncement."

Together they stood in the afternoon sun, watching shuttles fly overhead. Excitement had permeated through even the most stoic of Vulcans, with the inhabitants of Vulcana Regar moved to pride in the achievement of the city's shipyard: the first Vulcan-built Starfleet starship since the founding of the new homeworld, the _USS Falor_. 

"It's more than that," Charles said, to Serik's unspoken thoughts. "A new class of starship is being born, to take us to where Starfleet should set its course."

"I do not have to be told," Serik said, only a little grumpy. "I am, after all, your chief engineer on the ship."

Charles laughed. "I'm making sure you remember how amazing this is, darling. How many years it's been in the making — and how, despite everything, we were proven right in our convictions after all."

The corners of Serik's mouth twitched. "I have had little cause for regret, yes."

He turned his gaze to where he knew the _Falor_ would be, now docked serenely in New Vulcan's orbital station. The ship was designed specifically for deep space exploration beyond charted territories, with a full complement of communications experts and the fastest, sturdiest warp engines yet designed. They could be transported to the farthest quadrant of the galaxy today and make it home before T'Wan reached adulthood.

Charles murmured something under his breath about inspecting preparations for the launch, but didn't move from Serik's side. He didn't need to. Salvadore was well able to manage everything as first officer, and even now was probably bringing recalcitrant Ops personnel to heel. Charles caught the thought and laughed, already thinking of ancient stardust coalesced into wonders, places and lives they were yet to know, for good or ill.

Still watching the skies, and the commanding outline of the spaceyard across the city, they let their fingers touch. Charles's skin warmed under his. The sensation bloomed across their minds, intimate and sure, as it had in the days before, and would again.

 

**END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've put up annotations for the story [here](http://unveiled.dreamwidth.org/7294.html), because I'm just that big of a geek. Beware of falling opinions.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who commented when it was being posted on the kinkmeme! Much thanks and love as well to horusporus, who read through this fic and gave comments.


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